File Photo: Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff announced a partnership last May.
File Photo: Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff announced a partnership last May.

Microsoft was willing to pay as much as $55 billion to acquire Salesforce, but the talks between the companies fell apart after CEO Marc Benioff sought upwards of $70 billion, according to a new CNBC report this morning, citing anonymous people familiar with the talks.

The market value of San Francisco-based Salesforce is currently just above $49 billion.

In another interesting twist, CNBC notes that Benioff would have taken on a management role at Microsoft through the proposed deal.

Microsoft and Salesforce aren’t commenting on the report. Salesforce was reported in late April to have been approached by an unnamed potential acquirer, and Microsoft was later reported to not be interested in a deal.

Note: Potential acquisition price corrected since original post.

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